WHERE IS LOVE

"Aimee! Get up!"

     I turned over in my bed, looked toward my mother's voice, and stared at a hazy outline of her tiny frame. Arms dived under and lifted me. Smoke rushed up my nose as I inhaled, making me cough and gag.

     Bouncing in my mother's arms, I could barely see the narrow winding staircase walls as she pattered down them. I stared into thick smoke until I heard a thud. The front door to our farmhouse flew open, the smoke cleared a little, and my mother rushed me out into the nighttime darkness.

     Setting me down several meters from the house by a horse trough, she turned and ran.

     "Mama! Don't go back inside!"

     She glanced over her shoulder. "I must. Papa's there."

     Burnt wood odors charged up my nose as I watched my mother disappear through the doorframe. The roof collapsed seconds later shooting out smoke and flame toward me. I scrambled on my hands and knees away from the firestorm. A cloud of hot smoke swept over me, and my skin stung with its heat. Something fell across my legs and pinned me. It felt as though a blacksmith had laid red hot horseshoes across my calves.

     I screamed and kicked until I freed my feet. Turning over, I backpedaled like a crab, scurrying on my hands and feet away from the inferno. I glanced down and spied the hem of my petticoat in flames. Having extinguished it by shoving it into the dirt, I looked up at the burning remains of my farmhouse.

     "Mama! Papa!"

     "Aimee," Madam Dubois said. "There are few people living in this area. I know you are only eleven, but you should make your way toward Paris. It is a large city, and you will find someone who can keep you."

     "But, Madam Dubois, you have no one. May I live with you?"

     I looked up at her, the early morning spring sun shining over her left shoulder. It blinded me so much that her face remained hidden. I could only see a round shadow with no eyes, no nose, and no mouth-yet it spoke. "I am sorry, Aimee, but you cannot stay with me."

     I shook my head. "But is there no love in your house?" I looked at the two graves. "There was much love in ours."

     "Those days are gone. It is pitiful times for all of France, and the King is doing nothing to help us. I cannot even afford to send you off with any food. I gave you too much as it is. There will be no food for me by the time this month ends." She swung an arm toward the graves. "Say farewell and go find love somewhere else."

     Kneeling, I kissed the grave markers of my mother and father. I walked toward the road that would lead to Paris 100 kilometers away.

I walked all day and the next, but couldn't find any food. A wagon passed and stopped just ahead of me. A young man and woman sat in the front, the back piled high with farming tools and supplies.

     They waited until I plodded next to their wagon. I looked at them, and they stared back at me.

     "I haven't eaten for two days," I said. "Do you have food?"

     The woman threw her face in her hands and cried. The man patted her on the back and turned to me. "We were hoping you had some."

     "But you are grown up," I said. "Surely you cannot be without food."

     "We travel the countryside with our tools looking for farm work. We have been turned away for over a week, and our food supply is gone."

     I nodded. "Times are bad." I smiled. "Do you love your wife?"

     He nodded. "Very much, but it won't help if we can't find food for our stomachs. Unfortunately, money must come before love."

     I shook my head hard. "No. I don't believe that. If you have love, you have everything."

     "Tell it to your stomach," the man said, whipping the reins against his horse's back.

     They drove off, and all three of us were still hungry.

The next day I spied a road sign. "Paris 66 kilometers," it read. Behind me I heard carriage wheels rumbling. Spinning around, I saw six beautiful horses pulling a large carriage decorated in gold trim. It moved fast-but so did I. Because I was almost too hungry to stand, I found it easy to collapse in front of the horses.

     The driver pulled them to a stop a few meters from where I pretended to have fainted.

     I kept my eyes closed and heard the carriage door open and shut.

     "What is it, Pierre? Why have we stopped?"

     "Count LaRue, forgive me, but there is a little girl lying in the road."

     "Well, drag her aside and get this carriage moving again."

     "Yes, my liege."

     I groaned loudly.

     "My liege, I think the girl is hurt."

     "Pierre, we're going to be late," a woman's voice said.

     A long pause passed, and then the Count continued. "Oh, well … ask the girl what the matter is … and then get going!"

     I turned over in time to see a well dressed man, with a feather in his hat, step back into the carriage and shut the door.

     I jumped up and ran to him. "Oh, please, Count. I only faked fainting, but if I don't get food soon, I'll surely faint dead away."

     "Be off with you," the Count said. "Go wherever peasant girls go to get fed. Go home to your mother."

     "My mother and father died in a fire nearly a week ago."

     "Well," the count said, glancing at the woman beside him dressed in a formal gown, "whose fault is that? Surely not mine." He thrust his head out the window. "Pierre, the road is clear now. Please drive on."

     I grabbed the door and shook it. "Even though you have lots of money, there is no love in your house."

     The Count spread the fingers of one hand across my face and shoved. I fell to the ground and rolled backwards.

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